News From the BBC, CNN, and Al-Jazeera: How the Three Broadcasters Cover the Middle East by Leon Barkho (Jonkoping U) has been published by Hampton Press. The three gigantic media corporations, the BBC, CNN, and Al-Jazeera, are largely responsible for refining and shaping our views of events in the world. Their informational and communicative arm is unprecedented in the history of human communication. This book deals with their Middle East coverage, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian struggle and the war in Iraq. The picture it paints may not be a happy one for readers who have long taken the "neutrality" and "objectivity" of the three media behemoths for granted. The book helps readers first to become conscious of how the more powerful in the society work to control our lives through their discourse. It shows how and why the three broadcasters do that. It might be shocking for some readers to realize that the language we read and listen to is what the three broadcasters select to shape the world their own way and not the way their observers (journalists) want it to be or we the audiences expect it to be. ISBN 1-57273-974-1 $49.50 (cloth), ISBN 1-57273-975-8 $23.95 (paper).
